Abstract:
In linguistics, an honorific is a grammatical form that encodes the relative social status
of the participants of the conversation. Honorifics involve changing the way one speaks as a
result of the relationship between two people and the setting of the conversation. In Japanese
language many honorifics can be found as a part of speech which shows the respect, and their
use is mandatory in many social situations. Honorifics in Japanese used to emphasize social
distance or disparity in rank, or to emphasize the social intimacy or similarity in rank. Japanese
can be roughly separated into three levels of politeness: casual, polite, and honorific/humble.
And the most important factor to remember is that the speaker always considers himself/herself
to be at the lowest level. When non-native speakers learn Japanese language, it is impossible
to avoid the honorific, because it is a very important way of expressing the politeness to the
others in Japan. But, honorifics are one of the difficult parts of Japanese for Japanese learners.
Furthermore, the complexity of the honorific system in Japanese constitutes a special difficulty
for foreign learners, not only in terms of the range of expressions available, but also with regard
to the underlying input features which determine selection and use. The purpose of this research
is to find the actual use of honorifics of Sri Lankan university students. Researches have been
done on honorific expressions targeting Japanese people in different angles. So far, there has
been no research conducted regarding Japanese learners in Sri Lanka. Therefore a survey on
honorific expressions was conducted mainly focusing on the university students who are
learning Japanese at the University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka. In this research University students
were divided into five categories. Those are (1) First year students, (2) Second year students,
(3) Third year students, (4) Special Second year students and (5) Students who visited Japan.
The major finding was the knowledge of the honorific expressions of the students who visited
Japan was comparatively high than the other students. The results of the survey reveal the
awareness and actual use of honorific expressions of the students who learn Japanese in the
University level.
